Former teacher left no one without a friend

Vodvarka had recently married and finished graduate program

At 31, Jaime Vodvarka had just earned her second master's degree and had applied for a patent for a medical device she had invented. She was, as her husband, Tom Emmerling, says, "a doer."

But it isn't Vodvarka's many accomplishments that stand out for Emmerling. It is her empathetic spirit. Vodvarka's creative mind, small voice and eccentric mannerisms meant she didn't always connect with people right away. At first blush, some might have thought her odd.

"She was just an extremely sweet, sweet person, and she knew what it was like to be misunderstood like that," Emmerling says.

That prompted her to keep an eye out for others like her. She always befriended the person in the room who was sitting alone, Emmerling says.

"She gave a lot of people a lot of confidence," he says. "There are lots and lots of people she helped that way, whose lives are better because she was there giving them confidence. That's what made Jaime Jaime."

Vodvarka died Dec. 20 when the car she was driving crossed the median and overturned on Interstate 95 in South Carolina. She and Emmerling, who had been a couple for seven years, had recently wed. Five days before her death, she had presented her thesis to earn her master's degree in industrial design at N.C. State University.

The central idea of Vodvarka's master's thesis reflects her passionate advocacy for the underdog. Her family owns a small company that makes springs near Pittsburgh, where she grew up. In her thesis, she made a case for small manufacturers that specialize in a limited number of products versus large manufacturers that deal in mass production.

Emmerling says she focused on the idea that small manufacturers can be more nimble, which creates opportunities for innovation.

"It makes for a wide range of more ideas rather than a couple million of one idea," he says.

Mark Chancey, a fellow industrial design student, says Vodvarka's ideas reflected her unusual, inspired thought process. "She would always have a 180-degree flip on what you were thinking," he says.

Vodvarka became interested in industrial design when she was teaching science to academically gifted students at Ligon Middle School. She held a master's degree in education and a bachelor's degree in neuroscience and psychology.

Emmerling says Vodvarka would frequently think of ideas for gadgets to solve everyday problems. Industrial design focuses on how products -- anything from teapots to table saws -- affect people and the environment, and it suited her interests. She applied to N.C. State University's competitive program and got in.

"She didn't even know it was the revered program that it was," Emmerling says. "They just kind of took her on a hunch because she was so creative."

As part of her thesis project, she was working with small manufacturers to begin producing the medicine dispenser she had invented. She also volunteered with the RTP Product Development Guild and Land for Tomorrow, an environmental advocacy group.

"I'd never seen someone with so many irons in the fire," says Janell Moore, a fellow industrial design student and friend.

She recalls her friend as generous and fun. Once, when Moore found herself without a vehicle for a while, Vodvarka added Moore to her car insurance policy so that Moore could drive Vodvarka's car.

Vodvarka didn't have the best luck in the world, Moore says. Small mishaps seemed to plague her.

"Nobody stepped in dog poop as much as Jaime did," she says.

But she put a positive spin on things, and she had a joyful, carefree laugh that seemed to say, "I don't care what anybody thinks." Her friends loved to hear her laugh, Moore says.

Once when Moore was down, she was talking with Vodvarka about misfortune and injustice. Vodvarka's advice: "The way that we can fight back against that is to seize the things in life that are good."

That optimism is what Moore will remember most about her friend.

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